


Sick Day

by Lauralot



Series: Daddy Issues [13]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Kid Fic, Sickfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 14:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7390588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lauralot/pseuds/Lauralot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Avengers are away on a mission, it's up to Brock Rumlow to care for Steve's son.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sick Day

“You don’t look so good, kid.”

James doesn’t say anything, just pokes half-heartedly at his Apple Jacks with a spoon. _Shit._ Brock had been expecting a smart remark or at least an insistence from the kid that he’d brushed his hair and washed his face. If James won’t talk at all, he must be feeling really bad.

The kid _had_ been pretty quiet last night, tugging on Brock’s sleeve when he wanted more bedtime stories instead of just asking, face half-buried against Brock’s chest. But Brock assumed he was just lonely. The Avengers are out on a mission again, one involving some of HYDRA’s old haunts in Russia. Winter had gone along to help with intel, and Bucky had come to make sure Winter didn’t get ‘homesick’ with his memories and lose it. So it was just Brock and James, and James got sulky enough when it was only Steve gone.

“Feeling okay, kiddo?” he asks.

James shrugs, right as Jarvis says “Master Barnes is running a fever of ninety-nine degrees, Mr. Rumlow.”

“I’m fine!” James insists. His voice is scratchy. “I just had too many blankets last night and I got hot! That’s it!”

Just when Brock thinks this family can’t get any weirder. What sort of kid doesn’t jump at the chance to stay home from school? He frowns, trying to work out what’s got James freaking out. “James, you won’t be in trouble if you don’t feel good.” Maybe that’s the problem. The Winter Soldier wouldn’t be allowed to take a day off. Does the kid still think he’ll be punished for weakness? “If you’re sick, it’s better to stay home. That way none of the other kids will get—”

“I’m not sick! Ninety-nine’s not even really a fever!” There are tears brimming in the kid’s eyes, and he stands up in his chair so fast that milk splashes out of his cereal bowl and onto the tabletop. “It’s my week to get to erase the board and if I stay home it’ll be somebody else’s turn and I won’t get to do it for _twelve more weeks_! I can go to school! I wanna go! _Please!_ “

Brock can only see one way this day is going to end: trying to talk Steve out of abandoning the mission and flying home immediately. Either because James went to school and infected his whole class, or because James stayed home and spent the day screaming about erasers. No matter what, it would be ugly.

“Please!” James is crying now, big tears rolling down his face. “I’m not sick!”

“All right.” The kid doesn’t even hear him, he’s so worked up. “Kid! All right. You can go to school!”

James stares. Whatever protest he’d been about to make dies in his throat, becoming a half-formed whine. “I can?”

“But you’re taking Tylenol first.” There’s no way Brock’s going to be completely irresponsible. And who knows, maybe that’ll do the trick. The kid might just feel crappy from sinus drainage or something, and he’ll be fine once the day goes on. “And if you feel any worse, you tell your teacher right away, got it? I bet she’ll let you do the erasers next week if you have to go home.”

“I won’t have to go home!”

“Just promise me you’ll say if you start to feel really bad.” Brock crouches down so he’s eye level with James. Christ, that hurts. “You gotta promise, James.”

“I promise!” Just like that, the kid’s jumped off the chair, rushing forward so fast that Brock barely has time to brace himself before James is hugging onto his leg. He nearly topples over backward. “I love you!”

“Love you too, kiddo.” Brock grunts the words more than anything else, gently untangling himself from the kid’s grip. “Now try and finish your breakfast, okay? I’m gonna get the Tylenol.”

Brock makes a mental note to stop by the grocery after he drops the kid off. He gets the feeling they’ll be needing a lot of chicken noodle soup.

*

“ _Scarlet fever_?” Brock repeats, dumbfounded.

“I can’t officially diagnose it,” the school nurse says. She looks flustered. Nurses aren’t supposed to look flustered. “But the rash he has feels like sandpaper, and it goes white if I press on it. Chickenpox and measles don’t do that.”

Brock stares at James, huddled up in misery on the cot. He hadn’t even lasted until lunchtime. “How the hell did he get scarlet fever?” Brock thought that had died out around the time the US had mostly eliminated polio.

“It comes from the strep throat infection,” the nurse explains. “It’s treated with the same medicine. Scarlet fever is rare, but some strep infections do lead to it, particularly with young children.”

And judging by her tension and the way the office reeks of disinfectant, Brock’s guessing that it’s highly contagious. Great.

“C’mon, James.” With a groan of effort, Brock hefts the kid up into his arms. “Let’s go see the doctor, okay?”

James doesn’t argue. He just sniffles, hiding his flushed, blotchy face against Brock’s shirt.

*

Brock calls the doctor’s office while he’s strapping James into his car seat. Once they arrived, they’re ushered back before they’ve spent even a minute in the waiting room. The doctor must not want to risk James coughing on any other kids. One throat swab and a trip to the pharmacy later, and they’re back at home with a bottle of amoxicillin and a pint of dairy-free ice cream.

James isn’t feeling up to ice cream, though. He throws back a dose of the bright pink medicine and just asks to lie down in a faint, raspy voice.

“I need all my bears,” James whispers as Brock tucks him in.

“Uh.” Brock holds in a wince. He distinctly remembers his grandmother once reminiscing on her favorite ragdoll. Her father had taken it and burned it after a bout of scarlet fever, on the advice of her doctor.

But hey, his grandmother’s generation didn’t have disinfecting wipes, probably. “Sure thing, kiddo.”

He leaves the kid surrounded by bears, with _The Little Mermaid_ turned on in case James can’t sleep, volume low. Then Brock heads to the kitchen to try and bury his guilt over letting James go to school by focusing on making him some soup.

It almost works. The kitchen is warm, the air thick with the scents of oregano and basil. Brock’s cutting up the chicken when he realizes he has to tell Rogers that his kid has scarlet fever, and he nearly slices off his fingers.

*

Brock tries not to jump out of his skin when the phone rings.

James woke up around supper time. He was clearly still sick but feeling better than he had been, enough for Brock to get him in a warm oatmeal bath. Jarvis had said that oatmeal soothed scarlet fever just as it did with chickenpox. James sucked on ice chips so that it would hurt less when he took the next doses of amoxicillin and Tylenol.

Once he was dried off and in a new pair of pajamas, Brock tucked him back in bed with a bowl of soup.

“I really wasn’t very sick this morning,” James said while he was waiting for the soup to cool down. “I wasn’t lying, I promise.”

“I know, James.” Brock gave the kid’s hair a ruffle. “And you did good. You went to the nurse. You’re not in any trouble, kiddo.”

“Ms. Smith said I can erase the boards next week,” James added. He blew on his soup too hard, and a little of it splattered on his bed tray.

Once the kid was sound asleep again, Brock had given into his urge to pace and worry. What was he supposed to say? _Hey Steve, your kid has scarlet fever._ Brock was pretty sure that scarlet fever was one of the diseases that nearly killed Steve in his childhood. Hell, even kids who weren’t cursed with every health problem known to medical science used to die of scarlet fever. Steve was going to blow a fuse and probably try and hijack the Quinjet to fly home immediately.

Brock could just say that James had strep. It wasn’t a lie, technically. Except then Steve would find out once he got home and tear Brock limb from limb for keeping him in the dark. Or Winter would if Steve didn’t. And Brock would never be trusted to watch James again.

He’s trying to create some sort of script for how to best ease into the information when his phone goes off. Steve. And a whole hour earlier than he usually calls. _Fuck._

“Uh, hey.” Brock wonders if it’s completely reprehensible to hope there’s some sort of emergency on the mission, something that would distract Steve from asking about his kid.

“Brock! I just got a chance to check my phone and there’s a email from James’s school saying there’s been a case of scarlet fever! Is he okay? Does he feel sick at all? You need to disinfect his backpack and anything else that might have come in contact with—”

 _Shit._ School health alerts. Brock hadn’t even thought of that. “Yeah. About that.”

Steve stops ranting for one second. A second’s never felt longer. “What?”

“It’s, uh, it’s James.”

“ _What_?”

“It’s James. With the scarlet fever.”

Brock has the foresight to put the phone well away from his ear before Steve can shout, “ _My son has scarlet fever_?”

“Breathe, big guy.”

It definitely does not sound like Steve’s breathing. “I have to get back. Tony, I need the jet. I’ll send Maria after you when I get back, but—”

“Steve!” Brock has to yell to be heard. “Steve, listen. Medicine’s changed since you were a kid, you know. The doctor said the antibiotics’ll take care of everything.”

“It could turn into pneumonia! Or meningitis, or permanently damage his—”

“Steve, Jarvis is monitoring his vitals, all right? If the kid even breathes funny, I’ll know about it, and we’ll go straight to the ER. The doctor said as long as he takes all the medicine, the chances of complications are tiny, okay? Like less than five percent. Trust me on this. Just...trust me.”

Brock knows he doesn’t deserve that trust. Not after all he’s done to Steve. Or Winter, or Bucky. Even the kid. The lies he’s told, the things he’s been complicit in. This family, this second chance at a life, is more than Brock could ever earn. But somehow, it’s happened. And he can only hope that trust is one of the graces he’s been afforded.

There’s a stretch of silence, and Brock’s heart aches. He can just hear Steve’s voice, bitter and sad. _How could I trust you?_

But what Steve actually says is, “I want an update by text every hour.”

Brock feels his knees sag as tension ebbs out of his body. “You got it.”

“And keep him in bed, Brock. No matter how well he says he’s feeling. I don’t want him overexerting himself and making it worse.”

“Understood.” It’ll mean spending the rest of the week at James’s bedside, playing out hundreds of bear adventures, but it’s still easier than running around after the kid.

“And he needs easy foods, okay? Clear broths and—”

“Chicken noodle soup,” Brock says. “Yeah, I made gallons of it.”

“Thank you,” Steve says. Brock can actually hear the relief in his voice. “Thank you so much.”

“Don’t mention it.”

It’s not until he hangs up the phone that Brock hears the kid’s weak little voice calling for him.

“Hey.” Brock sticks his head in the doorway. “You need something, kiddo?”

“I heard yelling.” James’s eyes are round and worried. “Is everybody okay?”

“The mission’s going great,” Brock says. “Promise. Your daddy was just worried about you, that’s all. You can go back to sleep, James.”

“My bears need their honey,” James says, twisting his sheet in his hands.

“I’m on it.”

He hasn’t even reached the kitchen before his phone goes off again.

“ _James has scarlet fever_?” Winter demands.

Brock just sighs.


End file.
